FVWM would not have been possible without the tails, ears and the
little paws of the coziest beings in the world: our cats. Well,
perhaps we could have done without the paws. If your pet ever walked
straight over your keyboard, chased your mouse pointer (yes, I know
cats are supposed to catch mice, but still…) or fell asleep on your
trackball you know what I mean. ^_^

Dominik’s Cats

Kassandra

female, * 1989, + on 23rd of June in 2000 (bitten to death by a dog)

Kassandra was my favourite before I got Niniel, Luthien and Tilion. I had
to leave her behind when I moved to Southern Germany. I loved her very much
and I did not want to force her to move with me. We got them at the age of
1 and a half years and it took three month before she came down from the
heating pipes in our cellar.

Luthien

female, * 13th of September 1998, + run over by a car on 18th of March 1999)

Was the most beautiful kitten I’ve ever seen. She was my favourite cat the
instant I saw her (she was hiding in the attic and hissed when I came too
close). Had the strongest character and the largest eyes of the three. I
miss her so much!

Niniel

(full name: Niniel Nienor), female, * 13th of September 1998, + passed away in peace on 20th of May 2011

The smallest and cutest of my three cats. A saucy little whirlwind that loves
piddling on my bed and sofa. I have to find a better photograph.

Tilion

(male, * 13th of September 1998, ran away October 2002)

The biggest of my three cats. Hobbies: feeding and squawking. Once we tested
when Tilion would stop feeding, but had to break off the experiment when
we ran out of cat food.

Geoffrey and Pepper

male, * 1988, Pepper missing for years now (picture of Geoffrey below), Geoffrey
was put to sleep on 26th of November 2001

Two big black tomcats with a few white patches on the belly. Most of the
time when not feeding or sleeping they stray around the neighbourhood. Geoffrey
was the terror of the cats in the area. I had to leave him behind when I
moved to Althengstett.

Blacky and Tiger

female and male, * 1980, Tiger was given away when he was one and a half
years old, Blacky was shot by a forest warden in 1987.

I can hardly remember those two. Tiger was given away because he slobbered
in the lap of our visitors (we never forgave our parents). Have you seen his
ears? Perhaps we had better called him ‘Radar’. Blacky was a great hunter
and the most undemanding cat we had. She suffered terribly when she was shot
before the doctor put her to sleep.

Dan’s Cat

Angel

Rescued from the front window of a deli, Angel leads an indoor cats life.
To save our furniture Angel’s front claws are removed. I believe, as a direct
consequence, she’s one of the most dangerous cats I’ve encountered. That’s
right, watch out for this cat, she bites, hard.

Hippo’s Cats

Corky

Champion rat catcher. Proper name Corkscrew because he spent the first five
minutes of his life going around in circles until he discovered that he had
hind legs.

Scotty

A Garfield fan. Originally named after Robert Falcon Scott the famous (if
you’re British) polar explorer as she was the first kitten to make it to
the top the curtains and the only cat I know of to have gone up the inside
of a pair of trousers hanging in a wardrobe. She has since lost the travel
bug and spends her time testing the sofa for long term comfort.

Sir Boris II

A strange looking cat with a taste for grass, carrots, bananas and blackcurrant
juice.

Bob’s Cat

Tiny

A playful lynx-point Siamese, she probably understands more about the FVWM
code than I do by now.
The only problem is getting her to stop typing while
I’m trying to type. (Like I said, she’s playful.)
One of these days, I’ll try to get a picture of her in a debugging session,
and a picture of her sister.

Mikhael’s Cats

Murzilka

(short name: Murzya), a lovely kitty, from May 1999. When she was smaller,
she loved to play with a mouse pointer and watch dynamic screensavers. Loves
sleeping on the monitor with the tail falling onto the display. Can’t bear
washing.

Cassy

(full name: Cassandra), from Oct 2000. Sometimes a full opposite to Murzilka,
dominating, highly sociable, lap cat, fearless, loves to stay on two back
legs and play non-stop with toys.

Oliver’s Cat

Lili

A sweet and emotional cat, from September 1992. She does not like especially
computers except when she wants her diner!
She likes mouses but I have a touch pad …

Brad’s Cat

Blaise

You guessed it Blaise after Blaise Pascal, what else would you expect from
a programmer, and a math loving wife. Blaise is in her usual spot waiting
for dinner, she is good at telling time her clock is just an hour fast.

Jason’s “Cat”

Grendel

OK, in this page he’s more like “bait”. Grendel is a prairie dog, about
18 months old in this picture.

Alex’s Cat

Bob

My cat Bob is a very affectionate and totally loyal friend who’s just had
his 7th birthday. He eats too much, sleeps too much, and demands a lot of
attention, often doing somersaults in my lap while I’m trying to work on
my computer. I think he’s jealous of it. Bob is fully trained and very obedient
and does all sorts of tricks like “beg” and “roll over”.

Thomas’ Cat

Mildred

Mildred (DOB unknown - 2008) was originally a feral cat who we acquired
from a re-homing scheme, along with her brother George (anyone who’s
seen the sitcom George and Mildred will know the reference there),
originally to keep the rat population down on the dairy farm. But as with
most feral cats, if they soon realize there’s a source of food from other
domestic cats, they tend not to go hunting too much. So it was that Mildred
in particular was soon domesticated.

We had her ever since, even though we moved farms several times since we
initially got her. One of her amusing traits was that she was always
meowing, to the extent that she’d talk to you all the time. Say something
– anything to her – and she’d meow back. It was rather cute.

She particularly took a liking to me and my step-father, and I won’t ever
know why – I guess animals sometimes see something in a person that we
do not. But I miss her, and her overly sharp claws that she’d dig in to
me from time to time. Hmm, well, maybe I can try and forget the claws. :)

Jaimos’ Cats

Butters

Butters and Wendy are litter mates who were raised by a German Shepherd.
Butters has grown to know no fear. His hobbies include wrestling with
the shepherd, picking on Archimedes (another dog) and playing fetch. No
loose hair tie is safe and any that are found will be nicely filed
underneath the furniture. Butters favorite is paper. The sound of
crinkling paper sends him running from any corner of the house to play
fetch. When guest visit he entertains them all by making each one
of them throw the ball of crumpled up paper.

Butters not so desirable hobbies are getting attention when he is being
ignored. He is fond of the art of sabotage by chewing though the wires
beneath the desk. Butters has learned that removing the power to the
router gets him all the attention he could ever want. And no matter
what he does, Butters makes up for it be walking up just purrrfectly,
flopping down on his side, knowing all is forgiven.

Wendy

Wendy is sweet and mellow. She likes nothing more than a lap to curl up
on. And work, work is overrated, you should just put down what you are
doing and let me curl up on your lap. Doors should not be shut. Any shut
door I will fight against by scratching it until it opens.

What we love about our cats:

Their ears, tails and paws. And don’t forget the whiskers.

Each one is a unique character.

Purring and cuddling.

Sleeping next to the keyboard.

What we don’t:

Piddling on the bed.

Screeching for food.

Sleeping on the keyboard.

Quotes and trivia:

“To err is human, To purr feline.” – Robert Byrne

“Cats are like people: the females are the prickly ones and the males
are good-natured idiots.”